Today saw the release of the November jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The news is that Hurricane Sandy did not affect hiring. 146,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7%, the lowest rate since September of 2008. Revisions brought worse news. 49,000 fewer jobs were created in September and October than originally reported.

Already the media is celebrating and relieved by these numbers, but only graded on the four-year curve created for this president can the news of 146,000 new jobs be something worth celebrating. At this rate, we’re barely keeping up with population growth, and we’re most certainly not keeping up with the 360,000 to 390,000 new jobless claims filed every week.

But we’ve been hustled and bamboozled by the media into believing any number over 100,000 represents a recovery, when prior recoveries have given us 300,000-plus new jobs per month. Those recoveries, however, were generated by the government getting out of the way of the economy. Obama’s bright idea was to micromanage, deficit spend, and hyper-regulate.

But in order to protect Obama from his failure, an entire New Normal and standard for success has been manufactured by a media that will never-ever allow this president to fail, even when he does.

John Oliver, who once spurred his followers to crash the FCC’s website demanding net neutrality, is positively gleeful over the news that the agency has approved rules to regulate the internet like a public utility.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gives pretty hilarious and biting interviews in real life — “not 100 percent sober” ringing any bells? — but Kate McKinnon’s version of the “Notorious RBG” on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” may just take the cake. From jokes about her morning exercise routine to her sexy dreams about […]

White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid appeals for bipartisanship, President Barack Obama in just three days has provoked Republicans on issues as disparate as immigration, Wall Street and the Keystone XL pipeline — a combative mix of defense and offense that underscores Washington's political realignment.

Defying the Republican-run Congress, President Barack Obama rejected a bill Tuesday to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, wielding his veto power for only the third time in his presidency.

You know it’s bad when President Obama has even lost the support of MSNBC. MSNBC Host Andrea Mitchell basically called the White House’s Summit on “Countering Violent Extremism” a farce during her show Wednesday. “Here he has the summit, no heads of government coming, the participation has not been at a particularly high level. We’ll have […]

The president’s interview with Re/code over the weekend touched on privacy issues, with Obama insisting with “almost complete confidence” that there have been no abuses of the government’s vast surveillance program.

After a week that saw Republican infighting leading to a dramatic near-shutdown situation for the Department of Homeland Security, House Speaker John Boehner was questioned on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about his leadership. Boehner downplayed the divisions and said that it wasn’t the big picture that they disagreed on, but rather how to accomplish it. […]

Democrats really jumped the gun on this one. It seems that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was in such a hurry to fundraise over their hatred for Republicans this weekend that they were willing to spread a little misinformation to do so. The DCCC emailed supporters Saturday morning incorrectly saying that Republicans had allowed the Department of […]

Rand Paul’s speech at CPAC Friday felt a lot like a campaign rally—and the crowd left little room to doubt that they wanted it that way, breaking out into chants of “President Paul! President Paul!” at least three times over the course of his remarks.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has his sights set on 2016, but he is not very optimistic about what will happen both at home and abroad in the mean time. Cruz laid out his predictions for the direction he believes President Obama is leading the country in during a round table event with reporters and bloggers […]